


Fires Leave Their Cinders Flaring in the Dark

by SwaggerDownTheStreet



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: An Extra Dursley Kid, Because Dursleys, Charlotte Evans-Dursley, Child Abuse, Except Spoiler Alert She Has Magic, Fix-It, Gen, Harry Gets Rescued, Harry deserved better, Maybe - Freeform, Meaning Charlotte Looks like Lily, Meaning They Suck, Original Dursley Child (Harry Potter), Original Female Character - Freeform, Petunia's Demons From the Past, The Dursleys' A+ Parenting, eventually, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-25
Updated: 2020-05-26
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:41:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24341497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SwaggerDownTheStreet/pseuds/SwaggerDownTheStreet
Summary: Suppose Vernon and Petunia Dursley had another child, who was older than both their son and their nephew. Now, suppose that child looked almost exactly like her mother's dead sister. Suppose the girl had magic. Suppose she made a difference in Harry Potter's childhood, a small difference that turned out to snowball into a much larger one.Suppose.The one where the Dursleys had a daughter before they had a son, but turns out she has magic, so she grows up with bad parents but Harry as her best friend.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 16





	Fires Leave Their Cinders Flaring in the Dark

In the year 1977, Vernon Dursley married Petunia Evans. It was that same year that Petunia cut off all contact with her younger sister.

On the 21st of December 1978, they had Charlotte, their little miracle.

Or so they thought.

Several months after the baby was born, she began crawling around their house, and she was walking soon after that, as babies do. She was their bundle of joy, and they were soon to have a second one.

However, they soon realized that this baby was everything they tried to pretend wasn't real.

One day, when Charlotte was being given her bath, a car backfired loudly somewhere down the road. Surprised, Charlotte began to cry. Moments later, as Petunia tried to calm her down, the woman realized the bath water had turned a violent shade of purple.

After a few moments of panic, Petunia decided the best course of action would be to ignore it.

But the strange, inexplicable things kept on happening.

When Charlotte was at the park with her father, she tripped and scraped her knee, despite Vernon's vigilance.

She cried. Vernon tried to settle her. She yowled. Then, she stopped crying, just as suddenly as a jack-in-the-box. Except in reverse. Vernon was very confused, of course, but then he noticed that Charlotte's knee, which had been skinned and bleeding just moments before, was now perfectly fine, as if nothing had even happened.

So Vernon pretended nothing _had_ happened.

Then they had Dudley, and they both prayed nothing out of the ordinary would hapoen any more.

Dudley was a fussy baby. That was okay, because fussy babies were normal babies, and normal babies did not have... strange _abilities_.

But one day, Dudley woke suddenly, and began yowling in his crib. Vernon and Petunia both ran to the baby, only to find that he had been calmed. By one of his stuffed toys. Which was levitating over his crib, and Charlotte was standing beside it, staring intently at the now content baby.

Immediately, Petunia whisked Dudley out of his crib, while Vernon grabbed Charlotte. The teddy bear fell into the crib and both Dudley and Charlotte began crying again.

They couldn't deny it any longer.

Their first-born child, and she was a witch.

* * *

Knowing Charlotte was one of _them_ , the Dursleys regarded Dudley apprehensively for the next couple months of his life. When he didn't show any signs of _unnaturalness_ , they began to let the relief set in. They doted on the boy, ignoring Charlotte as much as the could in an effort to deny she even existed.

Petunia was considering proposing an offer to Vernon: they could beg her sister to take the girl in, and they would never have to think of them or magic in general ever again.

Then, on Halloween of 1981, they recieved the news that her sister and her husband had been exploded, along with their child and instructions to take care of him OR ELSE.

The panic was threataning to return.

"What do we _do_ , Vernon? We can't have two of them! The neighbors will notice! Oh, Vernon...."

Vernon's purple face wrinkled into an ugly raisin-like shape, which was what it did when the man was thinking, a task made even more difficult than it already was for the poor man by the fact that there were three babies in the house, and two of them were screaming.

"Here's what we'll do, Petunia..." he said at last, "we'll _squash_ it out. _Squash_ it out until they're just as normal as Dudley."

Then they both noticed that the babies were quiet. They turned to see Charlotte giggling and clapping her hands as every stuffed animal in the house marched a parade for the three babies.

"Yes." Vernon nodded decisively. "That's what we'll do."

* * *

Charlotte was eleven now. She had grown into an undersized, pale girl, her red hair was tangled and uneven, and she was scrawny. Dudley had just recently turned ten, and it was nearly Harry's tenth birthday. It was the summer before Charlotte went on to secondary school. She was wishing desperately for a miracle to save her from the terrible boredom of work, go to school, work, go to school, and be punished for everything abnormal that ever happened ever. And getting slapped. That wasn't ideal either.

Harry was the same. Her parents seemed to hate them both for some reason, while they spoiled Dudley to the point of obesity. Charlotte had realized the difference a few years ago, and when she did, she took every oppurtunity to use it.

She and Harry had magic. She tried to tell Harry this once, but he just told her she shouldn't pretend, or she would get in trouble.

(Pretending was against the rules for the Dursleys.)

She tried to prove it to him over and over, but he either didn't notice or wrote it off as a coincidence. Sometimes, the density of Charlotte's cousin was almost frightening.

Today, they were working in Petunia's garden. As they dug up the weeds, side by side, Charlotte turned to Harry and said, "Hey, Harry -- watch this."

Harry turned to look at her warily. "You'll get us both into trouble."

Charlotte shook her head vigorously. "No I won't! I keep us _out_ of trouble. Remember that time with the kids from school? They were chasing you, playing that awful game, but then they tripped and you got away?"

Harry frowned. "That was because they didn't watch the ground."

Charlotte sighed. "No, it was because I tripped them."

"...But you weren't even there."

"Yes I was, I was just hiding so I could help you. And I did! I used my magic to move the garden hose in front of their ankles, and they tripped!"

Harry glanced nervously at the door of the house, as if expecting Vernon or Petunia to come out and scream at them. "You shouldn't pretend."

"I'm not pretending!"

"Magic's not real, you know that. We'll get into trouble, you have to keep working."

Charlotte moodily turned back to the weeds, ripping them out with a new satisfaction.

"I snuck to the library once."

Harry gasped. "Charlotte! You know we're not supposed to go there!"

" _Shhhhh!_ " she shushed him. "You'll get me in trouble if you tell all the neighbors!" He obediently shut his mouth.

"How did you even manage it?" he whispered.

"I went last year, when Vernon and Petunia left us with Mrs. Figg so they could bring Dudley to the movies on his birthday."

"But..." Harry frowned, "Mrs. Figg was watching us."

"Mrs. Figg is probably three hundred years old. She fell asleep. You were watching television, so I snuck out and went to the library."

"How'd you not get lost?"

"My magic helped me."

That gave Harry pause. "You're pretending again, aren't you."

"No, I'm not! Listen, I read a book at the library where a little girl's mother died, so her father married a wicked woman and then he died, too. The woman had two little girls, but the other girl, Ella, she looked like her daddy, and that made the wicked woman very sad because she loved him, so she made Ella work in the house and get dirty all the time so that she couldn't see her face."

Harry blinked. "That doesn't sound like a very nice story."

Charlotte huffed impatiently. "No, you're missing the point! Do you remember how you're mummy was Petunia's sister?"

Harry nodded.

"And she died, right?"

He frowned. "Are you saying you think I look like her and that's why Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon are mean to us and nice to Dudley?"

"I don't know, but I think maybe that's part of it."

Harry considered this. "But... we don't know what my mum and dad looked like."

Charlotte shrugged.

They sat there for a moment, looking at the pile of weeds they'd dug up.

"Hey, want to see a magic trick?" Without even taking a moment to acknowledge Harry's sharp gasp, Charlotte picked a petal of a red tulip. She held it up in front of Harry. "Watch this."

Harry still looked as though the petal might explode like a bomb, but his curiosity got the better of him. He nodded.

Charlotte took a deep breath and closed her eye for a moment. She thought about the petal and concentrated. Then she opened her eyes and blew on it, like you blow on a dandelion to make a wish.

Instead of fluttering to the ground, the petal spiraled out of Charlotte's fingers and began dancing in a wind that wasn't there. Charlotte grinned and made it boop Harry on the nose. The boy was watching with wide, disbelieving eyes. Thinking he might try to write it off yet again, Charlotte made it fold itself into a litle red star. Harry gasped.

Charlotte made the petal dance some more, spinning and twirling over their heads before exploding into tiny, tiny bits, like a miniature, quieter firework.

"Now do you believe I have magic?" Charlotte asked him.

Harry nodded vigorously, staring at the tiny bits of flower petal that had fluttered to the ground.

Later that day, Petunia found the shredded petal in her garden. That earned them both a slap and they were sent off to bed without any dinner at all.

Harry slept in the horrid, spidery cupboard under the stairs. It was probably very cramped under there. Charlotte had never had to sleep in there.

Charlotte slept in the spare bedroom that was crammed with Dudley's old toys. Each year, the mess only got worse, because Dudley would recieve more and more presents, and he would refuse to throw out anything, not even the broken things.

It was probably still better than the cupboard, though.

There were differences in the ways the two of them were treated. Charlotte got her own clothes, because she was a girl and older than both Dudley and Harry, although they still never quite fit, because all of her clothes came from second-hand shops.

Charlotte took responsibility for everything she could, in order to keep Harry out of trouble. When Harry accidentally ruined the cake that was supposed to be for Vernon's work party, Charlotte claimed it was her fault. When they got caught trying to sneak out of the house, Charlotte said Harry was trying to stop her. When they were to be punished for stealing two ice creams from the frezer, Charlotte announced that she'd taken them both.

Unfortunately, there was only so much Charlotte could take the blame for. Sometimes she hadn't been there at the time whatever it was had happened, or Harry decided he could bear his own burden and denied what Charlotte tried to say. 

And there was nothing Charlotte could do to rescue Harry from sleeping in the cupboard or drowning in Dudley's hand-me-downs. She had once asked Petunia if Harry couldn't share her bedroom, since it was definitely big enough for both of them. That had earned her a sharp slap and a shrill "Don't ask questions!"

Tonight, though, Charlotte lay awake until the lights downstairs clicked off and Vernon and Petunia went to bed. After she was quite sure they wouldn't wake, she snuck out of bed and crept silently down the stairs, making carefully sure not to step on the creaky stair.

She tip-toed to Harry's cupboard and eased it open. It was dark inside. She could hear Harry's sniffing.

He was crying.

Immediately, Charlotte felt guilty for the little trick she'd done in the garden. She poked Harry gently. "Hey. Are you alright?" What a stupid question, she thought, people don't cry when they're _alright_.

Harry didn't answer her.

"Shove over, I'll sit with you."

Harry still didn't answer, but she heard him squish himself against the wall to make room. She climbed in and shut the door. It was pitch dark in here. It really was extremely creepy. Charlotte felt another pang of guilt for Harry, and resolved to try harder to get Harry to be allowed to sleep with her.

"No, open it," Harry whimpered.

"Wha-- the door?"

She felt Harry njod beside her. Then he seemed to realize she coyldn't see him. "Yeah."

Charlotte opened the door again, careful not to let it creak. "There. That better?"

She felt him nod again, but this time he didn't say anything.

After a moment of sitting in silent darkness, Harry whispered, "I had the dream again."

Charlotte gave a little gasp. "The one with the screaming and the scary laugh and the light?"

"Yeah."

They sat in silence again. "Do you want to sleep with me tonight?"

Silence. This wasn't the first time Charlotte offered Harry to share her bed. He always declined, though, for fear of what Vernon and Petunia would do if they found out.

"Yes, please."

The answer was a bit of a shock to Charlotte, but she wasn't about to object now that he'd finally agreed. "Then let's go."

They snuck back upstairs into what they called Charlotte's room and lay in her bed, both covered with the thin blanket.

"Harry," Charlotte said gently, "look at me, my eyes."

He did, turned his eyes on hers. They were dark, but if she looked closely, she could see the green.

"What color are my eyes, Harry?" she asked him.

"Black," he replied without hesitation.

She shook her head gently. "Look deeper. My eyes are only black because it's dark in the room. But the hallway light is on, so what color are my eyes?"

Harry squinted, looking hard at her. "Um... grey? No, green. They're green."

Charlotte smiled and nodded. "So are yours. 'Cause we have the same eyes. Remember? When I showed you in the bathroom mirror?"

"Yeah... we have the same eyes."

"D'you know what that means?"

Harry shook his head.

"It means that we will always be together, 'cause we love each other and we're connected. Did you know people's eyes are windows to their souls? I read that in a different book. At the library. So since we have the same eyes, we're connected."

"Oh."

"You better now?" Charlotte whispered.

"Mhmm," Harry hummed sleepily.

That night, Harry didn't have any bad dreams.

* * *

The next morning, Charlotte was woken by a sharp prodding in her ribs. She rolled over and blinked her eyes open blearily. She was greeted by the sight of Dudley's fat face leering down at her. She grunted.

"Go away, Dudley."

"How come Harry slept with you?"

 _What?_ She pushed herself up on her elbows and looked to her other side, where Harry lay fast asleep. _Oh._ "Um. Because -- because --"

" _Mum!_ " Dudley yelled. " _Mum!_ Harry didn't sleep in his bed last night!"

Charlotte simultaneously mentally cursed Dudley and thanked every supernatural force she could thank of that Vernon would be at work this morning. " _Shut up, Dudley!_ " she hissed, but to no effect.

Petunia came through the door, frowning, and at the same time, Harry yawned and sat up, rubbing his eyes.

Petunia's frown immediately became a harsh glare. "What. Is. This?"

"I -- um --" Charlotte thought desperately for an excuse, but Harry and his stupid chivalry beat her to it.

"I had a dream last night, Aunt Petunia." Charlotte mentally cursed the fact that even half-asleep, Harry realized Charlotte was about to be in trouble for him and decided No.

Petunia continued to scowl. "So why did you need to sleep with her?"

"It helps, a little --"

"Can't he sleep with me?" Charlotte interupted suddenly. "He's going to be too big for the cupboard soon, anyway, and this room is a whole lot bigger! Please?" Mistake. Rule Eleventy-thirteen-gibberish of the Dursleys: Don't beg.

Petunia, instead of exploding like Charlotte expected, stared at them distastefully for a moment, considering. _Considering._ That in itself was a miracle. Charlotte didn't believe she would possibly--

"I'll discuss it with Vernon." Well. It was a whole lot more than Charlotte expected-- "And don't ask questions!" Ah, there it was. "Now come along, Dudders."

Dudley trudged out of the room behind her, looking rather disappointed that he hadn't gotten to watch Harry and Charlotte get in trouble for the seven thousand eight hundred twenty third time in his life.

Harry looked at Charlotte with wide eyes. "D'you think--"

But she shook her head vigorously. "No, don't get your hopes up. Vernon's even worse than Petunia, you know that. If you start looking forward to sleeping with me, you'll be even sadder when he says you can't."

Harry chewed his lip. " _If,_ " he insisted. " _If_ he says I can't."

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback is very much welcome! :)


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